With $2.5 billion under its belt as we approach the film’s fourth weekend at the box office, Avengers: Endgame isn’t just the biggest MCU movie to date, it’s about to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. It’s also probably the most important film of 2019, and I’m well aware that the final Star Wars is also due to hit theaters this year. Avengers 4 is a massive accomplishment for Marvel, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, and we’ve been discussing the various controversies that popped up following the movie’s release. Captain America is the topic of at least one heated debate between fans, and even top Endgame execs, who can’t agree where Steve Rogers went at the end of the movie. The directors say it’s a different timeline, which makes the most sense, while the writers claim he’s been here in the main MCU timeline — Earth-616 — all along. But there’s one other Cap-related debate about his worthiness, and now it has finally been put to rest.
Cap summoning Mjolnir is easily one of the highlights of Endgame, and there are plenty of fantastic scenes in the movie. Steve gets the hammer that Thor brought with him from the past and uses it to kick Thanos’s ass. He then calls it back right before saying the famous line we’ve been waiting for him to deliver. And he keeps wielding Mjolnir, and even Stormbreaker at one point, all throughout that epic fight.
Here’s where MCU fans disagree about when Steve became worthy of the hammer, and it all goes back to a cute scene from Avengers: Age of Ultron. Every man from the Avengers team tries to pick up the hammer, just as Thor mocks them for not being worthy. When it’s Steve’s time to do it, he nudges it just enough to stress out Thor, but Cap doesn’t lift the hammer:
Some people think he’s always been worthy, but Cap chose to hide it. Others say that because he lied to Tony for all these years, he wasn’t worthy. I’ve personally been in the former camp — Thor’s “I knew it” reaction when Cap does finally call Mjolnir is priceless, by the way. And we now have the answer we’ve been looking for.
Kevin Feige went on Reddit for an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) session, where he answered some of the many questions that fans unleashed. Cap’s worthiness came up. Of course.
“Cap lifting Mjolnir was one of the strongest (crowd-cheering) moments in Endgame,” is one of the questions a Redditor asked. “Does he become worthy in that moment or has he been worthy for a while since, say, Avengers: Age of Ultron?”
“We think he was always worthy and was being polite in Age of Ultron,” Feige answered. And we all know how polite Steve Rogers can be, don’t we?
If that’s not enough for you, then here’s Joss Whedon answering a variation of the same question and making it clear that they intentionally planted this particular Mjolnir seed:
Mind you, this happened all the way back in 2015, after Age of Ultron hit theaters.
The full Feige AMA is available below:
